Al Jazeera wins eight Shorty Impact Awards, Brand of the Year

Digital groups AJ Distinction and AJ+ francais rating report wins in awards for purpose-driven digital and social media reporting.

AJ Distinction’s Emmy-nominated interactive web site Inaccessible Cities was named a winner within the Information & Media class [Sorin Furcoi/Al Jazeera]

Al Jazeera has received eight awards, together with Model of the Yr, on the seventh annual Shorty Influence Awards.

Digital groups AJ Distinction and AJ+ francais received in a number of classes within the competitors honouring purpose-driven, socially aware digital work.

The prizes have been conferred to 2 tasks: Inaccessible Cities, AJ Distinction’s a number of award-winning, Emmy-nominated interactive web site about girls with disabilities, and Cameroon, Land of Welcome, AJ+ francais’s impact-driven video and social media report by Remy Nsabimana, primarily based on the journalist’s private expertise as a Rwandan refugee.

Cameroon, Land of Welcome reveals the plight of thousands and thousands of refugees on the African continent, together with greater than 500,000 who fled the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Nsabimana returns to the camps the place he grew as much as create an intimate, compelling image of the challenges dealing with refugees who've spent many years stateless and in hiding, with out id playing cards, delivery certificates or passports.

The affect of the story was far-reaching, prompting the governments of Rwanda and Cameroon to alter their coverage on refugees, and the Rwandan authorities to announce the appointment of its first honorary consul to Cameroon, clearing the way in which for Rwandan refugees to acquire identification paperwork wanted to lastly achieve entry to medical care and education.

The story received 4 awards, together with Gold and Viewers Honors within the Human Rights class and was a Winner and Viewers honoree within the Immigration and Refugees class.

“I'm thrilled for this win recognising our workforce’s excellent work and for the affect the video has had on the lives of 1000's of refugees in Cameroon,” mentioned Kheira Tami, head of AJ+ francais. “That is what drives us as journalists: holding the highly effective accountable and exposing the destiny of essentially the most susceptible to allow them to hope to sooner or later stay in dignity.”

AJ Distinction’s Emmy-nominated interactive web site Inaccessible Cities was named a winner within the Information & Media class and a Gold and Silver medallist within the Social Justice class and Incapacity Consciousness class, respectively.

Inaccessible Cities brings audiences into the lived expertise of three girls with disabilities as they wrestle to navigate their lives in Lagos, Mumbai and New York.

A couple of billion folks – about 15 p.c of the worldwide inhabitants – expertise some type of incapacity. Many stay in city areas.

The online expertise was nominated for a 2022 Emmy Information and Documentary award and has garnered Gracie, Drum, New York Festivals and One World Media awards.

“We're enormously pleased with AJ Distinction’s creativity and tenacity,” mentioned Carlos van Meek, Al Jazeera’s director of innovation and programmes, Digital Division. “Regardless of myriad challenges, the AJ Distinction workforce has continued innovating and inserting itself on the centre of tales that make a distinction.”

Owing to the groups’ collective success, Al Jazeera Digital received an eighth award, Model of the Yr, given yearly by judges to the corporate with essentially the most wins.

The seventh Annual Shorty Influence awards winners and honorees have been introduced on November 16 in an in-person ceremony on the iconic iHeartRadio Theatre in Burbank, California, with greater than 200 attendees from all around the world and among the most distinguished Actual Time Academy members in attendance.